it's the promise of a better place
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: "Merlin help him, but Remus still loves him. He doesn't know how to stop." / Remus, and the missing years.


Written for Quidditch League Round 7, Puddlemere United - Beater 2: Department of Magical Transportation: Write about someone traveling, (object) newspaper, (dialogue) "Well, this is awkward.", (object) mismatched socks.

For Hogwarts' Writing Club: Assorted Appreciation 6: Davenport - Dialogue "Given what we've been through, haven't we earned that?", Disney Challenge, C 4. Iridessa - Write about someone on the 'light' side of the war, All Sorts of Space 1: Mercury - (occupation) Undercover spy, Showtime 28: The Room Where It Happens: (emotion) longing,

Amber's Attic: 8: "Dying is easy, young man. Living is harder.", Press Play: 2. "That's the problem.", Liza's Love 9: Subrace - Lightfoot Halfling - Write about someone on a journey, Scamander's Case 13 - (word) soul, Marvel Appreciation: Soul Stone: 1 - (Dialogue) "It hurts so much.", 3 - (Action) Crying, 4 - (Emotion) Love, 5 - (Colour) Orange, 6 - (Word) Effervescent

Eastern Funfair: Wedding Chapel - Shocker: Sirius/Remus, Southern Funfair: Test Your Strength - God level: Wolfstar, Northern Funfair: Sponge Throwing: (Pairing) RemusSirius.

Fortnightly Challenges: Ham Jam 9 - Eliza Hamilton: Write about being betrayed by a romantic partner, Canadian Craze: 5 - Newfoundland & Labrador - (genre) Romance, Around the World: Ticket: write about going to a new city/town/village.

Lyrics and title are from Ghost Towns by Radical Face.

_Word count:_ 3000

* * *

_I've seen more places than I can name_

_And over time they all start to look the same_

_But it ain't that truth we chase_

_No, it's the promise of a better place_

.i.

Later, Remus will think that he had known somehow. The world had felt different, on November first. Lighter, somehow, for all that Remus had woken up filled with inexplicable dread.

But he doesn't know for sure that anything happened until the third, which is when he's set to report to the Order on the situation with the werewolves — not great, but that's nothing new. For all that he wants to, Remus can't just promise them a better world on his word alone.

He knows how lucky he was to find the Marauders, to find Sirius — to find people so willing to accept him and love him despite his condition. No matter how tense the war has made things between them, Remus can trust that this family he's made for himself will still be there for him.

Not every werewolf can have that — for most, the very idea is too much to even envision — but the fact that Remus _does_ is proof enough that it can happen.

For some, hopefully, it will be enough to keep them from joining the Dark Lord's fight.

He's set to meet Dedalus at the Hog's Head. Showing up to full on Order meetings is too dangerous for Remus right now, and he misses his friends like one would miss a limb, but Dedalus will relay their letters willingly enough, for all that he complains about feeling like a messenger owl.

(It's not for forever, anyway — just until the war ends. That has to come soon, doesn't it?)

The fourth of November dawns cold and early, and Remus leaves the enclave as soon as he can make his excuses. He's glad for it — but then again, he always is. The company on the full moons isn't worth the dread and hopelessness that clings to everything.

But today, the dread clings to him like a cloak, curling around his lungs and refusing to leave as he makes his way to Hogsmeade.

The village is different, that much is obvious instantly. Remus freezes as he enters it — he doesn't think he's seen the place this happy in… oh, _years._

He's halfway across town when someone jumps on him, splashing half a glass of Butterbeer on his robes. Remus nearly blasts the man back before the laughter and cheers registers, but that only leaves him more confused.

"What…" Remus starts, but the words die unsaid in his throat.

"_The Dark Lord is dead!" _somebody shouts.

"_The war's over!"_ another cries out, and Remus's heart stops. He feels his lips lift up into a smile, hope bubbling in his veins.

Merlin, can it be true?

"Excuse me," he mutters to the wizard still clinging to him, excitedly echoing the cheers from the crowd.

He practically runs to the Hog's Head, bursting through the doors with a breathless, "Is it true?"

There aren't many patrons, and those who are there know better than to look up from their drinks. Dedalus isn't there — not that Remus was expecting him to be when it's so early still — but Aberforth is, wiping the bar, and he stops when he sees Remus.

The dread returns sharply, threatening to strangle him.

"Lupin?" Aberforth grumbles. His blue eyes are as sharp as his brother's as he takes in the scene, and when he sighs, he looks old and tired. "No one told you, huh?"

"Told me what?" Pushing those words past his lips seems to require immeasurable effort, and each step Remus takes toward Aberforth is harder than the last.

"Not here, lad," Aberforth tells him, guiding him toward the backroom. On his way, he sends the patrons a dark glare that Remus knows from experience says they'd better not cause any trouble if they want to be able to come back.

"Sit down," Aberforth tells him, a bottle of aged and unlabeled alcohol floating toward them. He pours them two glasses and downs his in a gulp, filling it again before pushing Remus's toward him.

His heart in his throat, Remus takes it and sits down. The alcohol burns on the way down, but it unknots his throat enough for him to ask, "What happened?"

Aberforth sighs, his fingers playing with the rim of his glass. "We won the war," he says, "but…." And there, his expression softens.

He looks just like his brother had, when he'd had to tell a young fifteen-year-old boy his mother had died from sickness, and just like that, Remus knows.

"No. _No, _they're not, they can't, this isn't —" _possible, _he doesn't say, because clearly, it is.

His voice fails him. Remus clutches at his glass, at the table like it might just hold him together as Aberforth keeps speaking, telling him about James and Lily and Peter, who are _dead. _

Harry lived, at least, but the horror drowns out the relief.

It registers, suddenly, like the first ray of sunlight after a storm, that Aberforth didn't mention Sirius at all.

He swallows. "What about… What about Sirius? I know he was their Secret Keeper, but did he… Did he survive?"

He had to have been tortured, if he gave up James and Lily. Remus can't imagine anyone could have survived that type of torture, as terrible as the thought is, but that he might have died too… _that_ thought is worse still.

But Aberforth falls silent, and pours him another drink.

"I'm sorry," he says.

And as it turns out, the truth is far more terrible than anything Remus could have ever imagined.

.ii.

Remus doesn't remember the trip, but he ends up in France anyway.

England has nothing but painful memories left for him, it seems. Sirius's face is plastered on every newspaper, laughing at him with maddened eyes, screaming _"How could you ever trust me?" _

_'I don't know,' _Remus wants to sob back. 'I don't know.'

And the worst part is that it's a lie, because Remus does know — it was love, as foolish as it was, as treacherous as it turned out to be.

He gets drunk in a park on the cheapest alcohol he could get (and that was already too expensive for his small means). It eats at his insides like acid on the way down, reaching down all the way to his soul, or so it seems, but it does nothing to dull the pain in his chest, and Remus chokes back a sob as he collapses backward on damp soil.

He takes another swig of liquid and sighs.

Almost despite himself, he finds that his eyes drift up to the sky. It's clear tonight, and though Remus is in a Muggle town, it's late enough that the lights are off.

There are so many stars; the sky is more brightness than darkness, and yet Remus only has eyes for a single one of them.

His eyes find it with practiced ease, and they burn for it.

_"Damn you," _he whispers to the dog star, his bitter laughter shattering like glass in his chest, and he drowns all the things he doesn't know how to say in more alcohol.

After that night, Remus gives up on drinking. He sticks with Muggles though, because it's easier to forget there, because whenever he goes to the magical world, he still sees all these reminders of the people he lost and left behind, and his heart can't bear it.

He stays in the town where his boat arrived long enough to learn enough French to venture deeper into the country, trying not to remember the way Sirius's laughter had sounded like when Remus had butchered the language, back when Sirius had thought it sexy and fun to try to teach Remus the 'language of love'.

He mostly fails at that, but he does pick up the language faster without… Undue distractions.

It feels like a poor consolation prize, but it's still _something. _

Remus leaves that town and its ferries as soon as he can. It almost doesn't feel like he's running away.

.iii.

Remus moves to Paris after a year and it's better.

The distance is better. Nobody knows him here, and he knows nobody. He finds a couple of odd jobs, just enough to make ends meet, and tries to lose himself into the Muggle world.

Mostly, it works.

He even makes a couple of… well, not friends, because Remus _had_ friends, but acquaintances. Acquaintances, he can do.

Mostly it's just Marguerite, an old lady who lives next door from him and adopts him as a grandson.

Remus suspects it's because none of her family comes to visit her, and he doesn't really have the heart to turn her away. She gives him all sorts of baked goods every time she sees him, and every other week, she drops some knitted good on him under the pretense that she can't possibly keep them.

She knits a lot of socks, but for some reason, she likes to have them mismatched — which is how Remus ends up wearing his, because Marguerite always smiles and laughs when she sees it.

He sits with her sometimes, and makes her tea. He's the only one who can make it just right, she says, and Remus jokes it's because he's British.

"You should find yourself a nice young girl," she tells him one day as they're sharing tea, reaching out to pat his cheek.

Remus laughs awkwardly, startled. "I don't think that'll happen. "

He expects her to keep needling at him, but instead, she gives him a sharp look and says, "Or a nice young man, then," and Remus chokes on his tea.

He doesn't know what makes him say it. Perhaps it's the distance — Sirius can't touch him here, in Marguerite's warm and cluttered apartment — or perhaps it's just that he's tired of swallowing it back every day.

"That's the problem," he says, the words thick and heavy in his throat. Remus has to blink back tears. "I used to… have someone. "

Marguerite's eyes go soft and she leans forward to take Remus's hand in hers. "Oh," she says, her voice so kind it almost hurts. "Tell me about him?"

Remus gives a strangled chuckle. "He…" But Merlin, how can Remus even _begin_ to explain to a Muggle what happened with Sirius?

"He wasn't who I thought he was," Remus eventually settles for. The euphemism almost makes him smile.

But he's not smiling. His vision blurs instead, and his breath hitches up in his chest.

"He _lied_ to me," Remus tells her, the words tearing themselves from his throat.

"It… It hurts so much. I wish I'd never known him." The next sentence, he whispers like a confession. It is almost too horrible to give voice to, for all that it is true.

"I wish he'd killed me too."

(Some nights, Remus dreams he had. These nights aren't better.)

"None of that, now," Marguerite's sharp voice cuts through Remus's misery like a knife. Her eyes are blazing so intensively Remus flinches back, but she still holds his hand in hers, her grip deceptively strong. "Never wish you were dead, child."

Her voice softens as she squeezes his hand. "Dying is easy, young man," she tells him. "Living… Living is harder."

Remus's lips quirk up into a small smile. "That's very wise."

Marguerite scoffs, leaning back into her chair. Her cheeks turn pink.

"Yes, well, I have learned _some_ things in my old age."

She sighs and looks away.

"I used to have a woman like that, you know," she says suddenly, her tone fond and sad. Dimly, Remus realizes why her family doesn't visit, but he's too focused on her words to spare that thought more than a passing moment of attention.

"Oh?"

Marguerite nods. "Yes. Not that… our story ended like yours did, but well, she broke my heart." She sighs again, and pats Remus's hand. "I know you've probably heard it a thousand times by now, but it _will_ get better."

"Thank you," Remus replies, his throat tight. "And, erm, I hadn't, actually. Heard it a thousand times, I mean." Not even once, really.

Surprisingly, it does make a difference.

This time, when Marguerite smiles at him, Remus smiles back. It feels like healing.

Five years later, Marguerite dies.

The next week, Remus leaves Paris.

.iv.

For a lack of a better option, Remus goes back to England. He's eating breakfast when his eyes drift to the calendar. It's July 31st. Harry would be turning 8 right now, Remus realizes, and he puts down his fork. Suddenly, his eggs taste like ashes.

He wonders if he's happy — probably. He has to be, doesn't he?

Painful longing hits him suddenly, and Remus is halfway to Petunia's house (he remembers the address from Lily, who mentioned it years ago) before he realizes it wouldn't be a good idea.

Harry doesn't know him. Remus would be a stranger, showing up on his birthday, out of nowhere and with no warning.

A stranger who couldn't even stay, not without putting him in danger.

Remus turns around and buys a ticket to America before he can convince himself otherwise.

Harry will be just fine without him.

Everyone is better off that way, anyway.

.v.

In America, Remus ends up getting a job in some shady apothecary.

He isn't proud of it, but it pays better than most jobs he's had before.

Here, his employer knows why Remus has to have the full moon off. He doesn't ask about it, of course, and Remus doesn't volunteer information, but it works out just fine.

In fact, Remus seems to get more side looks for the way he's dressed — he hasn't quite gotten out of the habit of wearing his socks mismatched, even though they're wearing thin now — than for the days he has to miss work.

It's the first time he's actually back in the magical world since 1981 and he'd missed it.

He stays there for three years, trying not to implicate himself into whatever side deals his boss is into.

He's not surprised when in the end, the apothecary gets shut down by the MACUSA. Remus is out of a job for it, but at least he's not arrested, even though he is 'politely' escorted out of the country.

They do offer to pay for a Portkey to whichever place he'd like to go, and something — sentiment, really, makes him say England.

Harry's due to start Hogwarts anytime now, after all.

.vi.

Remus doesn't really stay in one place in England. He lingers around the Leaky Cauldron for most of the summer, not admitting to himself he's hoping for a glimpse of James and Lily's son, but in the end, he misses the boy.

It's a sign, Remus realizes, his heart painfully tight in his chest. It has to be.

He gets out of London the next day, and spends the next three years never really staying anywhere long — not that he can. Staying anywhere requires money he doesn't really have, or at least, not for long enough.

And then one day, he wakes up to knocks on the door.

It's Albus.

"Well, this is awkward." Remus laughs when he swings open the door. He's half awake and still in his pajamas, though judging from what Albus is wearing — bright green robes patterned with purple stars — Remus doubts the man will think to judge him on his attire.

Albus stays uncharacteristically serious when Remus shows him in, barely smiling at all. Remus shivers, suddenly reminded that Albus was the only man You-Know-Who ever feared.

He changes his pajamas into robes, and sits down. Dread pools in his stomach. "What… What happened?"

If Albus is here, at this ungodly hour, it can't be good.

It isn't.

"Sirius escaped," Remus repeats dumbly. His hands clench and unclench in the air. "But _how?"_

"We don't know," Albus replies evenly. His glasses flash. "Yet."

Remus's heart rises in his throat. "I didn't help him," he says. "I wouldn't."

"I know, dear boy," Albus replies, but Remus can see in his eyes that Albus _hadn't known,_ not until Remus has said so.

_And why would he?_ Remus thinks wryly, his nails digging into his palms. Thirteen years, it's been, thirteen years spent trying to _hate_ Sirius, to excise him from his soul, and all Remus had gotten from it was more pain than he'd thought he'd be able to bear.

Merlin help him, but Remus still loves him.

He doesn't know how to stop.

He sighs and looks up into Albus's eyes. He feels more tired than he has in years.

"What do you need me to do?"

Albus holds his gaze steadily, and smiles softly. "Well," he says, "Hogwarts does still need a Defence teacher. And who better than you to fill that post?"

.+i.

Sirius's letter crinkles in his hand, but Remus doesn't dare put it away. As long as he holds it, it's real.

He walks faster, his hands shaking and his heart racing like he's sixteen again, meeting a boy who likes him and whom he likes in the Hogwarts kitchens.

Sirius is already there when Remus gets to the park. He looks… better, for a certain measure of the word.

But when he sees Remus, his face comes alive.

"Remus," Sirius greets, smiling. He moves to stand up, his hands hovering in the air between them, before rocking back on his heels awkwardly. "I didn't think you'd come."

Sirius looks ashamed at the admission, but Remus just snorts. "I wouldn't miss it." He sits down, drinking in the sight of a face he'd spent years trying to forget. "Given what we've been through," he starts, his voice going soft despite himself, "haven't we earned this?"

Remus pats the bench next to him. Gingerly, Sirius sits back down, and Remus's heart skips a beat.

He doesn't take his hand back, and slowly, tentatively, Sirius's hand inches towards it.

"Is this okay?" Sirius asks, his voice trembling just a little when their fingers touch.

"More than," Remus replies honestly, tangling their fingers together. He smiles.

Slowly, and in tandem, they breathe.


End file.
